An empirical comparison of popular structure learning algorithms with a view to gene network inference

In this work, we study the performance of different structure learning algorithms in the context of inferring gene networks from transcription data. We consider representatives of different structure learning approaches, some of which perform unrestricted searches, such as the PC algorithm and the Gobnilp method, and some of which introduce prior information on the structure, such as the K2 algorithm. Competing methods are evaluated both in terms of their predictive accuracy and their ability to reconstruct the true underlying network. A real data application based on an experiment performed by the University of Padova is also considered.